Cold Blood
by misspottah
Summary: Private Detective Charles Cannon looks into a murder and the Ministry. I've love murder mysteries/private detective stories, and I love fantasy. So here's a little mix between the two, to be told over quite a few chapters. This is not a Cuckoo's Calling/HP crossover, just a murder mystery/private detective story in the HP universe. Canon HP characters will appear.


Authors Note: So. I'm reading Rowling's book _The Cuckoo's Calling_. I've love murder mysteries/private detective stories, and I love fantasy. So here's a little mix between the two, to be told over quite a few chapters. This is not a _Cuckoo's Calling_ /HP crossover, just a murder mystery/private detective story in the HP universe. Warning that there will be mention of violence.

* * *

Shell gravel crunched under his Charles's feet. He thought, only briefly, of a long ago trip to the beaches of west Florida. The little souvenir shops, ice cream parlors and bars were connected only by sandy pathways; there was hardly any cement in sight. Most travelers wandered barefoot along the sprawling paths, pockets empty and shoppings bags heavy. Charles had worn tennis shoes, the only pair of shoes he had thought to pack. His feet were used to the hard London pavement, but they had been conditioned on the comfort of proper shoes. His fiancée, Rachel, came back to their tiny hotel room one night with a pair of cheap, brightly colored flip-flops, an item for which he proved himself grateful, though they made him feel ridiculous and broke within a day. They broke up in the airport on the way home- Charles and Rachel, not the flip-flops.

Against the postcard backdrop of the red sky and blue waters, the shell walkways felt appropriately quaint, a piece of the landscape. The grey sky of Hampstead Heath, with the London skyline pressing into its trees, did nothing to compliment the landscaping choice. Every footfall felt obscenely loud.

The house was large enough that its guest felt confident in describing it as a mansion. Splitting the pathway in two, a pond rose out of the shell, its sides formed by perfectly rectangular slabs of cement. In it's center stood a turquoise statue of an ibis, peeking over it's shoulder. Out of the corner of his eye, Charles saw it stretch one of its wings and return to its original position. Bushes lined the yard and a single palm tree swayed to the left of the mansion, its palm-fronds swaying like flags on a pole. After knocking on the front door, Charles looked upwards, seeing no movement in the two levels of bay windows that made of the center of the facade. It took less than a minute for the door to glide open.

"Good afternoon." An unsmiling man, butler by uniform, blocked Charles's view of the house's interior with a practices stance. He waited, silent, for the guest to state his intention first.

"Hello. Charles Cannon. I'm here to see Mrs. Montjoy." Charles kept his face neutral, mirroring that of the butler, who hesitated just a second before stepping aside to allow Charles into the foyer. Inside, the house was immense, and decorated in a similar false-tropical style. A single, large conch shell rested on a round entry table. A clear vase filled with stand, about hip height, stood next to the door as an umbrella stand. Giving Charles one last look of appraisal, the butler disappeared. Charles assumed he was intended to wait where he was left. Despite the choice of decoration, the house seemed to operate in way of any other proper English mansion. His own flat was small, just one bedroom, but his job had led him into houses such as this many times. The rich may not have more questions than others, but they do have the money to hire Charles to answer them.

"Detective Cannon- hold on, please." The voice enunciated clearly, the same way it had on the phone. Charles looked up from the decor, hearing slow, clicking steps on the stairs. Her feet came into view first, clad in heels, the rest of her appearing as she descended. She was in her mid-forties, but she looked older. Worry pulled lazily at her face, like it had been doing so for years. She wore a loose sweater over her dress, but he could still make out the sharp bone of her elbow as she clutched the railing. She smiled as she reached the bottom of the stairs, stretching out her hand to her guest. "Thank you for coming all the way out here to meet with me."

"It was no problem." Charles shook her hand, happy not to see the butler following Mrs. Montjoy back into the foyer. His own office, their other option of meeting location, wasn't suitable at the moment, anyways. The brief nausea of apparating was a small price for the appearance of professionalism.

Melinda Montjoy expertly navigated every pleasantry. She offered water, then coffee, then a seat in the next room with the very best detached attentiveness. Charles Cannon politely refused all but the seat, following his host into a formal sitting room. Pictures of Melinda Montjoy and her deceased husband mixed with prints of sea life on the walls, which were painted a muted blue. Several of the couple's pictures matched the decor, showing the couple on a sailboat, floating in a pool, or holding hands in front of the ocean. Once they were settled and introductions were through, Melinda slid her wand out of her sweater pocket and did a quick summoning charm. A small box floated into the room moments later, dropping nicely into the woman's lap.

"Pictures," Melinda clarified, taking the lid off the box. "I hope you don't mind that I'm getting right to business- they're why I called you."

"No, of course. That's why I'm here."

"Roland was from Boston." Melinda Montjoy needed no more encouragement. She took a few pictures from the box, pushing them across the light wood coffee table towards her guest. They were grainy, a little old, but their subject couldn't be much older than sixteen years. He had freckles and sandy brown hair, handsome in the boyish sense. The pictures showed him swimming, sailing, lounging in the water. In one, he shook out his wet hair and grinned at the camera- a winning smile from a golden boy. "My mum, she taught a class at the Salem Witches' Institute. She took a portkey across the ocean three times a week. Before I was old enough for school, she would bring me with her."

Charles watched as Melinda fell deeper into the box of photos, talking as if he wasn't there and she was merely telling herself the story.

"Dad would come sometimes, too, when he didn't have to work. We lived not far from here, but we had a house there in Massachusetts, in the suburbs of Boston. Roland's father taught a class at the institute- once a week, as a sort of charity act. But he held parties for the teachers and their families at his house. That's where I met Roland. We were inseparable." Melinda smiled, looking younger than she had minutes earlier. "We would build forts, play pretend- we were kids. When we started school, I couldn't go with my mother anymore. But Roland wrote, at least once a week, all through school. More, when the situation in here was at its worst. He was so worried, he kept reading things in the papers- I made him send me those pictures, because I missed his face."

Melinda nodded towards the pictures she had slid to Charles and pulled out more without looking his way, laying them across the table. Roland and Melinda Montjoy were in each of the various pictures. They stood with friends, dined at nice restaurants, and laid together in the grass. In most, they were laughing, clinging to each other. In all, they eyes, at some point in time, found each others. The detective didn't interrupt to ask questions; he knew better than that.

"I would see him over breaks, when our parents allowed. It got easy when we started apparating. After I finished school my family moved to Boston for a while. The war reached the States, but just barely. It was much safer over there. By the time the war ended, Roland and I were engaged. He wanted to buy a house in the States, somewhere by the water- but his father wanted him to expand their business, to run their European branch. So we moved here."

"I know Mr. Montjoy comes from a family with large concern for lineage." Charles tooked this pause to sneak in a question. "How did his family react, when they found out that he had proposed to-"

"A mudblood?"

"That wasn't how I was going to-"

"Of course." Montjoy flicked her wrist, as if brushing away any idea that she was offended. Her eyes were still focused on the pictures. "Both of my parents are wizards, as were my grandparents. But somewhere along the line there must have been a muggle." She pulled another picture to the front. Roland Montjoy laughed, a perfect red lipstick mark on his cheek; Melinda Montjoy clung to his suit jacket and tie, hiding her own laugh by pressing her face into her husband's neck. "My blood may not be pure, but the pure blood pool is small and, all things considered, I'm hardly a bad choice."

Charles thought carefully before speaking again. "And Roland's family, they felt the same way?"

She set the pictures on the coffee table, finally shifting her eyes back to Charles. "Most of them. This was after Voldemort's first fall." Neither of them so much as clenched their teeth at the word. They were starting to get used to it. "To talk openly about pureblood supremacy- those kind of people didn't do well, socially, once he fell. But yes, Roland's mother would had preferred someone else. She makes sure I'm aware of that fact. But she wouldn't have tried to hurt either of us- she loved her son."

"Roland's mother is still alive?"

"Yes. Roland's parents still live in Boston."

"How long ago did the two of you move here?"

"About twenty years." A picture of Melinda and Roland in muggle-made witch and wizard costumes, respectively, hit the table. "That was Halloween in Salem, three years after I finished at Hogwarts. We moved the next day."

"And Mr. Montjoy passed away-"

"He died a little over a year ago. Here, in the house. I was- I teach a class at the institute in Boston now, like my mum did before she retired. Roland liked it because he had an excuse to go home, to be out on the water while I taught. Sometimes at night we'd take his boat out on the water- but he had too much work that week. He had to stay home. That happened sometimes, when things were busy. I wasn't here. I came home and-" She closed her eyes, like she had forgotten he was there again. She placed another picture on the table carefully before she opened her eyes. "I found him and I called the muggle police. They said he was stabbed by whoever broke in."

"But a year later, you've called me."

"The muggle police were out of their depth." She was awake now, almost fiery. The a picture was still held carefully in her hand. "Clearly. I called the Ministry. They finally got back to me last week- said it was a simple stabbing, a muggle issue."

"You disagree."

"It's not easy for a wizard to be killed in a regular break in. I've looked into it- it's almost never happened. He had his wand, and we always had a protective charm on the house. We even hired a security team a few years back. There is no way a muggle could have gotten in and out unnoticed." Melinda put the lid back on the box and leaned forward to set it on the floor beside her feet. She looked at Charles seriously. This is where she made her case. "I looked into your career as a private detective. You have a history of proving the Ministry wrong."

"I do." Charles tried to deny his instinct to sit up a little straighter. He spoke without conviction. "The Ministry is different now."

"Not _so_ different." Charles hadn't noticed, but a thin file had floated into the room with the box of pictures, hidden under the box in travel. He wondered if this was done purposefully. It now sat in Melinda's lap. She placed it on the table, on top of the pictures, opening it to reveal only two pages. "Detective Cannon, Roland left me a great deal of money. I decided to use a small portion of it to bribe someone- someone menial at the Ministry- to bring me this file."

"Mrs. Montjoy-"

"I don't claim this was the right thing to do, Detective. But I'm glad that I did it." She leaned forward across the coffee table as if she was about to whisper to Charles. However, the volume of her voice did not change. She merely pointed to two lines on the paper. "They closed the case the day I opened it. They only told me last week."

She was right. "This could be a discrepancy."

"It's not. I've paid large sums of money to several parties tp have it checked." She straightened up again, clearly attempting to brag, to drag him in. "And I'm willing to pay you even more to check it again."

And she had him.


End file.
